Report: Skype co-founders may buy it back
The founders of Skype may be trying to repurchase the Internet phone service, The New York Times reported Saturday.
Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis sold their company to eBay four years ago for $2.6 billion. Sources told The New York Times the two men have been meeting with private equity firms and gathering their own funds to finance the deal.
Since selling their company, the two have created venture capital firm Atomico.
According to Skype, its service has more than 405 million registered users. The compares with 54 million users when eBay bought it in 2005.
eBay has acknowledged that Skype has few synergies with its core businesses, the Times said. And eBay's chief executive has publicly stated that he's willing to sell it for the right price.
Neither the co-founders nor eBay would comment to the Times about a possible sale. But the Times reported that a source with knowledge of the plans said that Zennstrom and Friis are working toward a deal worth $2 billion.
Natalie Weinstein is an associate editor who works out of Austin, Texas. She spent a decade as a reporter and editor in the newspaper industry before joining the CNET News staff in 2000. E-mail Natalie. 
Skype has a lot of appeal now and a big media presence on shows like Oprah and Dr Phil. Once people understand that this type of service is available over their phones they will want to use it. Voip is now the preferred way to communicate in our homes, it is only a small step till we get it through our phones.
With chip makers making huge advances in phone processing power and new networks being able to handle the transfer of calls now is the time for Voip across multi platforms. Imagine having the same number no matter where you are and no matter the device. Always connected, we are here now so let's embrace voip and do away with 100 year old phone numbers.
Want to call me?
Skype me Ofmyony 60 (not really me)
Think about it this way - all of the local TV and Radio networks in a town convert their towers to broadcast wifi signals along side their digital [and in the case of Radio analog] broadcasts and withing 20 years everythign can be delivered via WiFi
One of the towers goes down - use channel 2's. In the car listening to the radio, in dash weather and traffic updates are constantly being pulled down for you.
Over $100M a year. Not shabby. And they got to take 4 years off.
me? I'd have taken that $2.6B (I think ebay paid about $2.2B too much) and say "SEE YA!""
Cody
- by szlevi April 12, 2009 3:31 PM PDT
- Anyone thinks Skype worth $2B is downright clueless. Skype's only weapon is that it's FREE as long as you don't go beyond the internet. Every other aspects of Skype is rather mediocre or downright craptastic (like its very low quality crappy video, its ****** codec etc.)
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- by ducttape36 April 13, 2009 9:13 AM PDT
- true skype isnt the best option as far as quality, but they do have a huge install base. So if they jsut got their act together they could def be worth the money. eBay probably couldnt do it though, as someone who uses skype-in/out and has a skype number I'd be pretty pleased if it went back to the original developers.
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(10 Comments)eBay is one dispecable giant who replaced one completely loser CEO who burned $2.6B on such a miniscule crap like Skype (stupid, incompetent loser Meg Whitman) with a utterly clueless yet arrogant CEO (he's Donahoe: look at the damage he did to eBay, especially in these times when they could have easily become the small sellers' Amazon instead! - so yes, there's some good news in this rumor but IMO $2B is hilarious to even think of...